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The Shepherd's Crown
The Shepherd's Crown is the 41st and last book written by Sir Terry Pratchett before his death in March 2015. It is the fifth novel in the Discworld series to be based on the character of Tiffany Aching, and was published in the UK on 27 August 2015 by Random House publishers, and in the United States on 1 September 2015. In early June 2015 the custodian of the late author's works, his daughter Rhianna Pratchett, announced that it would be the last Discworld novel, and that no further works or books of unfinished work would be authorised for publication. Plot Tiffany Aching is so busy running her steading and taking care of the people of the Chalk that Jeannie, the Kelda of the Nac Mac Feegle, is worried that she is overdoing it. When Granny Weatherwax, Tiffany's mentor, dies, she leaves everything to her apprentice Tiffany which adds even more work to her life. After an initial conflict with Letice Earwig (pronounced 'Ah-wij'), one of the senior witches who thinks she should be the heir to Granny, Tiffany becomes the first among equals of the witches - not that the witches would ever admit to having a leader. She tries to balance running both steadings, flying back and forth between the two places, You, Granny's old cat sitting astride her broomstick, clearly at home with her new mistress. Geoffrey, the third son of Lord Swivel, is well educated, a vegetarian and a pacifist. This does not sit well with his father, especially since he is a spare wheel in the family, the father has a son and heir and a spare in case something happens to the heir. He doesn't need a third son who spends his time immersed in books instead of blood sports and takes no interest in Geoffrey, especially when Geoffrey displays his contempt for his father's hunting practices which he considers barbaric. After a confrontation with his father, Geoffrey hooks his goat, Mephistopheles, to his cart and heads towards Lancre, intending to become a witch. Meanwhile, in the domain of the Elves, Peaseblossom senses that the passing of Granny Weatherwax has weakened the barriers between the realms. When a goblin shows the Faerie Court what the humans are capable of with iron and the status that goblins have achieved, Peaseblossom usurps Nightshade, the Queen of the Elves, intending to reenter the human world and reestablish the elves' power. He orders his henchmen to rip off her wings and throw her out of the Elf Kingdom. Tiffany, spread thin tending to the Chalk and Granny Weatherwax's old steading, decides to employ Geoffrey as a 'backhouse boy' or general dogs' body to help her out and starts teaching him the basics of caring for the people in the area - the first step to becoming a witch. He and his goat get on well with everybody, and Tiffany dubs him a calm-weaver after he defuses a number of potential problems. He befriends some of the old retired men who have time on their hands and are bored stiff. Intending to help the old men have some autonomy from their wives, he introduces the idea of sheds (Discworld's 'man caves'). Nightshade is found by the Feegle who has been stationed on the Chalk to guard the gateway to fairyland. The Feegles restrain her until Tiffany arrives and takes her in on her family farm. While there, she decides to carry as a talisman the shepherd's crown, a fossilised Echinoid, that had been in the Aching family for many generations. Tiffany attempts to teach Nightshade what it is to be human and the motivations of kindness. The Elves make forays into the world and it becomes obvious that they are preparing to attack the human world and regain control, so Tiffany calls a meeting of all the witches and develops a plan to fend off the invasion by the Elves. Geoffrey marshals the old men, and assembles a fighting force. Tiffany attempts to enlist the help of the Elf King but is initially rebuffed. Geoffrey, with the help of the Feegles builds the King his own shed on the edge of his domain in the hope that it will earn his allegiance (what man can resist a shed of his own). The elves break through at two stone circles: up in Lancre and down in the Chalk. In Lancre, they are met by the assembled witches with help from Geoffrey, his goat and the old men and they are defeated. In the Chalk, they are met by Miss Tick, Letitia, Tiffany, and the Nac Mac Feegle. Nightshade, with her glamour restored, fights for Tiffany, whom she now considers a friend, until she is killed by Peaseblossom. The elves seem to have the upper hand until Tiffany, wearing the shepherd's crown, calls the power of the Chalk to bring a storm and commands the ghosts of her grandmother's sheepdogs, Thunder and Lightning. She summons the King of the Elves, who kills Peaseblossom, and she banishes the elves from the Land. Afterwards, Tiffany realized that she can't do everything on her own so decides to devote herself to the Chalk. She recommends that Geoffrey be given Granny Weatherwax's steading, and builds herself a caravan home on the site of Granny Aching's shepherd's hut, using the wheels from Granny's old caravan. Popular References There are many references pointing back to other novels in the Discworld series. It is like Pratchett knows this is his final novel and wants to do a final tour of his other books to remind his readers and make connections. Tiffany comments that Fairyland is not like the version described in The Goode Childe's Booke of Faerie Tales. ''The title of this book and comments both here and in other Pratchett novels such as ''The Wee Free Men, suggest that this book follows in the tradition of the sanitized fairy tales made popular in the 1940s to 1960s where the scary parts were removed from Grimms' and Anderson's tales and replaced with something more acceptable to puritanical adults (The Golden Book of Fairy Tales published in 1958 and compiled by Adrienne Segur is such an example). In the Wee Free Men, Pratchett references the painting by Richard Dadd, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke in one of the scenes so he may have been thinking of the painting again in this novel. Co-incidentally, Freddy Mercury of Queen was also inspired by this painting and it formed the basis of Queen's song The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke on the album Queen II Tiffany notices young Feegles are following her on her rounds and collecting samples of the strongest substance known to man, toenail clippings from the elderly. Initially the reader is led to believe this is an example (like the teeth held by the Tooth Fairy) of controlling someone by getting a piece of them. However by the end of the novel it becomes clear that they are being used as crescent-shaped boomerang weapons. Only the Nac mac Feegle children would learn their alphabet with "A is for Axe to chop off your head" instead of "A is for Apple". Again Pratchett is pushing the limits on the sanitized children's world of books and learning vs a more realistic (certainly for the the Feegles) one. The Golden Book of Fairys and Enid Blyton vs the Original Grimms fairy tales. Or the original Hogfather/Father Christmas vs the accepted and popularized one. Lord Swivel has a very appropriate name given that a previous lord has lost the family fortune and the present one has regained it. In case the reader misses this obvious reference, Pratchett states it outright when he says, "Young Harold had wheeled and dealed, and yes, swivelled and swindled until he had restored the family fortune." Whether the family name is based on a real Roundworld family is unknown but there are plenty of Lords of the Manor to draw from in present day and historical England. Another literary Swivel on the Disc is the Ankh-Morpork Times' literary critic Tuppence Swivel. If he is a relative, he would be a black sheep in the family as far as Harold is concerned since literature and Harold do not mix. Mephistopheles is the name of Geoffrey's goat. Geoffrey Swivel who is very book learned got the name from a book, perhaps from Discworld's equivalent of Faust. On Roundworld the demon Mephistopheles appears to Faust, in both book and opera, to offer him the Standard Contract - his soul. This is another reference back to the earlier Pratchett work, Eric ''in which a Faustian bargain is made with Eric. The novel also plays with the common folk tale number three; Mephistopheles is the third baby goat and the runt of the litter. Geoffrey is the third son and the spare wheel. The baby Tiffany names after herself is the last triplet born and a girl. Folk tales use three as the basis for most stories; Goldilocks and the Three Bears, three Billy Goats Gruff, three wishes, three tasks to perform, three brothers sent on a quest (the third and youngest the one who succeeds), the Three Sillies, etc. Geoffrey studies the philosophers Ly Tin Wheedle, Orinjcrates, Xeno and Ibid and the inventors Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos as well as Leonard of Quirm. The Great Discworld philosopher, Ly Tin Wheedle, has a vaguely Chinese Roundworld style name so he is likely based loosely on Confucius. His name has been variously described as a pun on "lighten widdle" or "lie then weedle". ''Orinjcrates is obviously a reference to Socrates but his name pronounced phonetically is "Orange Crates". Xeno means 'foreign or foreigner", Ibid simply means "from the same source as the previous reference" - in other worlds he is a bit of a plagarist. G''oldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos'' has many connotations; two obvous ones continue the James Bond references that Pratchett has used many times, the movies Goldeneye ''and ''Goldfinger (Dactylos means 'finger' in Greek). Leonard of Quirm is an obvious reference to Leonardo da Vinci. So Pratchett is giving us the finger with Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos. Langus is like Daedelus who flies too close to the sun in Greek Mythology. This is likely a reference to Lingus as in the Irish national airline Aer Lingus. His father Pilotus draws obvious comparisons to an Aer Lingus 'pilot'. Death says to Granny Weatherwax, "Your candle...will flicker for some time before it goes out" foreshadowing that her soul will be transferred into her cat 'You' to help in the coming war with the Elves. Readers of Snuff ''will remember that Ham-on-Rye is the home of St. Onan's Theological College. Ham-on-Rye, a play on English place names that combine the town's name with the river beside which it is located (such as Hay on Wye) and the kind of bacon sandwich Vimes loves but can't eat because his wife forbids it. The Rye is a river in Ireland, a tributary of the Liffey. Another reference from Pratchett to earlier works in his final book. The footnote regarding Agnes Nitt/Perdita making a fool of herself doing the 'devil among the Pictsies' is a reference to the Scottish Country dance, "The Devil among the Tailors". After Granny Weatherwax dies, Pratchett travels around the Disc to get the reactions of established characters, again going back to characters and events in previous books. From ''Equal Rites we get - Eskarina Smith's rag-rug on the bed and a very brief cameo from Eskarina who was a girl who wanted to become a wizard, paralleling Geoffrey who is a boy who wants to become a witch. There is also the mention of Esk's son - details of which will never now be known. When Tiffany delivers the triplets and names the girl after herself, there is the hint that this unwanted child will eventually take over from her when she too reaches the stage that Granny Weatherwax has reached. The white cat You appears out of nowhere at Tiffany's side and the comment is made that cats seem to be able to be in more than one place at once. Pratchett has referenced the thought experiment by Erwin Schrodinger in Lords and Ladies in regard to Greebo. The thought experiment which is known as Schrodinger's cat argues that a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead, its actual state only determined when you look in the box. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat. It has been argued that the appearance of You at Tiffany's side and Pratchett's footnote comments is a reference back to Schrodinger and perhaps to the invisibility concepts in Schrödinger's Hat. Mrs. Letice Earwig whose name is pronounced 'Ah-wij' resonates with the Monty Python sketch which Pratchett has used before about the man whose name is 'Throat Warbler Mangrove' but it pronounced 'Raymond Luxury Yacht' whic itself is a takeoff on British names like Featherstonehaugh and Cholmondeley that are pronounced Fanshawe and Chumley respectively, nothing like they are spelled. Alternately, with the pronunciation 'Ah-wij" she or her husband (witches don't normally take their husbands' names) could be from Quirm. Granny Weatherwax's 'borrowing note' has been amended to say "I is probably dead". Since it doesn't say "I am dead!" this is another hint that she has temporarily transferred to You to help in the upcoming war with the elves. The animals all sitting together whether predator or prey, around Granny Weatherwax's grave resonates with Isaiah 11:6 in the Bible which reads: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” ''This passage confers a 'godlike' stature on Granny Weatherwax which is confirmed with the statements of the others in Pratchett's tour around Discworld immediately after her death. Stackpole's play ''"Much Ado About Everything" '' is an very obvious play on Shakespeare's "''Much Ado About Nothing" ''both the play and the author's name. Agnes sings the ''Columbine Lament ''which in Roundworld is a piano piece John Thompson not a piece for voice. Pratchett probably chose this title to remind readers of the massacre at Columbine High School in the USA and its subsequent copy-cat school mass murders over the intervening years, including the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary which occurred shortly before he wrote this book. The Discworld lumberjacks performing their duties better when wearing womens' clothing and singing while they work has been used before in ''Snuff ''and is an obvious reference to the famous Monty Pythons sketch. The lumberjacks even get the 'Biggerwoods'' mail-order catalogue. In Britain, Littlewoods is a popular mail-order company specialising in women's clothing from lingerie up to outerwear. Reception The book received positive reviews, with the Telegraph and Den of Geek awarding it 5/5 while the Guardian said "This is not a perfect example of Pratchett’s genius, but it is a moving one." In the first 3 days of release, it sold 52,846 copies, more than double Jeffrey Archer's Mightier than the Sword which was the second best selling book that week. It topped the chart the second week with 27,386 copies sold, generating £318,576 in revenue. Legacy Rhianna Pratchett, Sir Terry's daughter, finished writing The Shepherd's Crown following her father's passing. She stated that she would not be continuing the series, nor would she permit anybody else to continue her father's legacy, calling it "sacred" to him. Category:Novels Category:Tiffany Aching series Category:Books Category:Books (real-world)